Greek-named symposium & mentors/collaborators wanteD :)

This afternoon, I attended a symposium from a lab with joint PIs. It meant for internal meetings, but since some of the talks mention some of my babies, I must attend. Attending a relevant talk is good, quickly allowing us to absorb the knowledge, as compared to reading papers. Con: sometimes I am lost, they talk too fast, I am lack of background info, they put too much things in a slide & move on to the next slide too fast, I am tired and overloaded.

At the post-symposium dinner (it’s a kind of buffet, hurray Free food), I met some researchers. Two of them belonged to the famous prof C.D. who shared with me that they are going to Florence for a group meeting. Why go overseas for a group meeting? The group meeting is once a year event (oops), and if you want to meet the boss, got to make an appointment with the secretary.

I asked some questions, then 1 researcher after answering some of my questions, replied “okay?” in a tone of I-think-u-have-asked-a-lot,-now-excuse-me-for-a-while. Smiling, yes, thanks a lot! Asking is better than keeping my ignorance. Honestly, I need a mentor/somebody who can guide me, somebody who can inspire me, it’s okay to make mistakes together, at least I prefer to work in a team. My supervisor does not like the ideas I collaborate with others, I do understand his concern that it may be difficult for me to defend in my viva – which parts are my work. But again, putting two brains together are more than two. Putting more than two brains together, are even greater. Mentor, collaborator (I don’t mind doing drudgery work as long as can have results & learn something) .